It looks like Taiwan’s trade to China took up 36% of its exports. As the article suggests, this is a 28% increase in trade volume from 2003, making China as Taiwan’s biggest market. It will be hard for Taiwan to achieve its national identity apart of China if it becomes too dependant.

China is willing to use military force, by all means necessary, to keep Taiwan as part of the greater nation. Given the governmen’t high regards for human rights, I wouldn’t be surprised if they just cut off all trade with Taiwan if they tried to secede. It would certainly destroy the Taiwanese economy and force them into submission.

It seems also that China is drafting anti-secession legislation. The article makes a good note that the law is aimed only at Taiwan, instead of other all two-system areas like Hong Kong and Macau. This forces a direct pressure on the country, and an indirect pressure on the U.S. to take a position.

Right now, that one is relatively neutral (though we’re selling some arms). The U.S. doesn’t want Taiwan to make any drastic moves that would test China’s will to carry out military operations, as that could turn the indirect conflict into a direct one between China and America.

I honestly don’t think it will come down to that though. This is more like a Cold War chess game than an actual war, but if anything did happen, the U.S. would need to defend Taiwan. If it didn’t, then democracy would be dead there, and they wouldn’t even have the “one country, two systems” mantra anymore.